Michael Overzat’s Theory On Digital Marketing

There are three things that drive Michael Overzat crazy about companies’ digital marketing strategies:

1) They don’t have one.

2) They outsource it entirely with the mentality, “I got that covered.”

3) They abandon traditional sales methods.

Seriously, it drives Overzat mad. He runs into companies all the time that literally have no digital presence, and then these business owners wonder why they are paying outrageous amounts for third party lead sites like HomeAdvisor or Zillow that send them unqualified leads in the first place.

“It’s almost comical,” Overzat says. “You have these contractors or realtors who pay $50 dollars for a lead because they have a website that doesn’t rank. Then when they do get the lead—if it doesn’t turn into a sale right away—they never follow up with the lead more than once or twice and go and pay another $50 for a new lead...” Overzat folds his arm with an expression of befuddlement, “You have to give it to these lead generation sites for taking advantage of this opportunity. If business owners had their own digital strategy and knew how to follow up… Then this would never happen and HomeAdvisor or Zillow would be a thing of the past.“

He goes on, “This is especially true with contractors like in the HVAC or Electrical industry. These guys are terrible sales people. I don’t even mean to say that to be rude. It’s like they think their product will sell itself. They think they aren’t salespeople in the first place, as if its bad to sell something to somebody who needs it. Everyday we are selling or being sold products. Go to the gas station, you buy gas. Go to the grocery store, you buy groceries. Everything is sales, whether these guys like to admit it or not… And a business owner who pays $50 dollars for a lead, but never follows up with the lead more than twice. Then goes and buys a new one. He’s just a damn fool.”

It sounds harsh. Overzat seems brutal.

But isn’t that the reality of business? Sell or be sold, overhead or profit, kill or be eliminated?

This is 2019 and there are companies all over the place—small, medium, and large sized—dropping-the-ball on digital marketing. Or even worse–paying some company to handle it–without any internal investment into their strategy.

Overzat sips from his coffee, places the mug down, and continues, “These are the mediocre companies, the ones that struggle when the economy crashes. It’s the realtors who can’t survive when the housing market crashes with a thud. It’s the HVACer who panics when the AC season winds down and he’s reliant upon shit leads from HomeAdvisor..” His voice raises and eyes widen,”These are the AMATEURS!!!”

Below are a shortlist of marketing strategies that make up Michael Overzat’s Marketing Theory.

Push And Pull Method:

There are five steps to customer acquisition:

1) Need Recognition— Recognizing a problem, or a need for something.

2) Information Search-– An average consumer spends 11 hours researching online before buying product or service. This is comparable to searching online or browsing a car lot. It’s the hunt for the right product that will solve the problem or need.

3) Evaluation Of Alternatives-– This is when the buyer actually sits in the cars, or takes them on a test drive. It comes down to the details, and how much, how fast, what color. It’s weighing the pros and cons.

4) Purchase Decision— This is where the consumer differentiates between the other products and solutions out there. It’s the ‘aha’ moment when they find the one that works. If there is no differentiation between other products or services, then no confident decision can be made.

5) Post Purchase Behavior-– This is what happens after the purchase. Are they satisfied? Did their problem get solved? Would they recommend and become an ambassador for the brand? These are the stages that a buyer goes through before making a purchase. It could actually be broken down into 12 steps:

But to keep it simple, the customer needs to recognize a problem that must be solved. Once there is a problem, the search begins. After there becomes a list of choices, one product/service has to stand out to solve the problem. And after the problem is solved, depending on how happy the consumer is with the delivery–then that determines if the post purchase behavior is good or bad for the company’s growth.

Now push and pull methods will all depend on what service/product is trying to solve a specific problem. For example, many HVAC companies focus solely on pull marketing–because they want to pull the customer in when there is a need for HVAC services, ie. a furnace or AC breaks.

On the other hand, many realtors focus more on push marketing because they are trying to push out in the marketplace and make the general public aware of their firm so when they are ready to buy–they remember their firm as the one that has the billboards all over the place.

Of course, there are going to be certain business models that focus more push than pull, or pull than push. But they are all intricately interrelated. For example, HVACers or realtors wouldn’t have to do so much inbound lead services like HomeAdvisor or Zillow if they ranked organically on search engines and had more inbound content development. Web traffic comes from domain authority, and domain authority comes from consistent content sharing. So if these companies focused more on pull marketing content development, then they could drastically reduce their push and pull marketing advertising costs.

That’s why a truly great digital marketing campaign would have both!

Traditional VS. Digital

Where the line between traditional marketing ends and digital begins is comparable to where a river meets the ocean. Today, the ocean is the digital because that’s where the average consumer is spending most of his time. But traditional marketing still flows into digital.

For example, when Michael Overzat first began his marketing career. He spent an immense amount of time cold-calling and sending emails manually. He had very little social media presence and almost no digital advertising campaigns, yet he was utterly shocked to find out that over 56 searchers a month were looking him up by name. Figure that! One guys cold-calling and email-sending was leading to monthly visitors looking him up on Google.

It makes sense.

Here Overzat was pitching products worth thousands of dollars to business owners, calling over 100 business a day, sending out email follow ups. And the business owners were looking him up after he’d reach out to them. It was a great lesson learned: The fact that traditional and digital overlap.

Now scale this up to a company with 30 salespeople cold calling per day, television campaigns, radio, direct mailing… Now you have a company that is being searched up all over the place. And what do the customers find… Well, that’s the point… The customer is funneled into nowhere land because the company invests tens of thousands into traditional marketing but no strong, sturdy digital marketing strategy. Nonsense!

Creating A Brand That Lasts

A brand that lasts is one that has a sales funnel that has low-risk offers up to comprehensive, brand immersing product/ services. For example, Precision Digital Media has low-risk offers like webinars or digital download. There is no risk for the consumer. He can taste test the brand without having to commit fully. On the other hand, Precision Digital Media has thousand dollar digital marketing tools that are on the other end of the product funnel, when the customer is fully immersed in the brand and believes in it.

So many companies out there don’t have a product funnel in the first place. A large part of that has to do with their balance of outflow vs. inflow. For example, a real estate agent with no educational material or content development has a potential customer who is uninformed. That’s why they are looking to list with an agent in the first place. They want an authority. But the agent isn’t an authority in the first place, and doesn’t have any way of informing the prospect as to what sets this reality apart from others. That goes back to ‘Evaluation of Alternatives‘ in the Push And Pull Section. If the prospect can differentiate why this firm is different than others, he never makes a decision to list with them. And if he is uniformed, it’s going to be light years harder to get him to list.

The best thing is to have an informed buyer, not the opposite. And informed buyer can make a decision. An uniformed buyer is indecisive. And it’s the brands job to fill that gap.

That’s where the low-risk to high-risk sales funnel comes in. A free ebook teaching a homeowner about the process of selling a house is a low-risk way of informing them on why they should choose this realtor over others. While listing a house with a realtor is more high-risk.

Creating a brand that lasts is depended upon creating a highly converting sales funnel that uses low-risk offers to inform the potential prospect on what sets this product/service apart from the rest.

The Amateur Vs. The Professional

There is great shortage of Professional marketers in any industry. These are the guys who are constantly learning and progressing toward mastering not just the craft itself, but also selling his craft to the marketplace. The professional never has a shortage of qualified leads, of referrals, of opportunities. The professional’s income has no limit.

While on the other hand, the amateur is always in shortage. The amateur is the one who goes out of business when the economy takes a turn. The amateur’s income is never stable, and his ability to penetrate the market with his product/service is never consistent or in abundance.

Confidence is the key to marketing and selling. So the amateur is never confident in delivering his product or service to the market because he approaches his craft like a pastime not like a profession.

It’s impossible to succeed at any industry with an amateur approach. It’s short road to failure, or in some cases, a long road to mediocrity.

The mediocre is always seeing the grass as, ‘Greener on the other side.” The professional makes the best of what he has, and uses his tools to full potential.

Conclusion

Overzat raps up the interview with a warning, “Look, it may sound harsh. It may hurt your feelings; all this talk about amateurs, mediocrity, and failing… But this is the reality of being an entrepreneur. Failure is always in the back of your mind.”

Mike stands up, paces for a few turns, then steps toward the whiteboard near the wall–grabbing a dry erase marker, removing the cap, touching the red tip to the board, he writes in big, bold letters, “THERE ARE THREE LEVELS OF ACTIVITY: Average level, little activity, wrong activity, and MASSIVE ACTIVITY.”

He steps from the board and explains, “No activity is not an option… Even when you die, your body is decomposing and is taking some level of activity… Little activity is like sleeping in everyday… Average activity is what 99% of people are doing… Wrong activity is exactly what it means, it’s moving in the wrong direction. Then MASSIVE Activity — the only level of activity that ensures success.”

He goes back to his chair and folds his arms, staring off at the ceiling in a face of confident ponderment,“Yes, most people are doing average levels of activity… And that’s the most dangerous form of activity. It’s why so many people are just getting by. They have just enough. It’s quite frankly–shameful… If there is anything you should pull from my theory of marketing… It is to market massively in every sense of the word: Push/pull marketing, traditional and digital. EVERYTHING. That is the only way to ensure creating a brand that lasts and stepping out of the realm of mediocrity to greatness!”

Michael Overzat is the founder of Precision Digital Media. His background started when he worked for a large digital marketing and publishing agency called Action Media. He started Precision Digital as a means of helping small/medium sized businesses increase revenue, hire more, and scale up. He takes pride in seeing these companies grow to the point where they can hire more. Reach him at (301) 364-9388

32 Comments

Oh yes, so right about digital marketing. Without it, I don’t know how a company survives. Unless the company is a mom and pop ice cream shop thriving off the local neighborhood, everyone should be online, and honestly even they could benefit from an online presence.

That being said, things are constantly evolving and changing, so we do have to adapt. I find it a bit daunting at times to keep up on everything, but knowing the necessity, I just do it. I learn and read and try to keep abreast of all the new tactics and social media strategies. I’m not doing paid ads, so I’m working to do everything generic.

Hey Babsie, Thank you so much for the reply. I think the same thing. How are these companies staying afloat when they don’t advertise digitally or even have any sort of content development strategy. It’s almost crazy! that’s why they get caught up into this lead generation racket. When they could totally circumnavigate these sites by just developing more content on their own!

The Myth of The Middle Class. That is one of the best quotes I have ever heard. I love the theory you are taking. Its obvious you are not worrying about someone hurting your feelings or worried about hurting someone elses feelings.You talk lots about a sales funnel which is something I really need to learn more about. I am very familiar with building a brand.It seems this is turning the corner on digital marketing and I love it. I really need to re read this article because it really has peaked my interest.Thank you for writing such a great articleDale

hey dale, thank you for reading between the lines. These myths are pounded into our heads daily. Don’t ask for too much, don’t get too much attention, don’t push for the things you want in life. Bullsh*t! this is that middle class programming that’s being jammed down our throat so that we don’t have upward mobility and threaten the 1%. Im not against the 1%, but they set up wall street, home ownership, college loans, all as a way of enslaving people into the middle class. when i become a 1%, im going to try and liberate people not enslave them!

Thanks for this review, according to market segmentation theory, to better serve the customers, the market is divided along some similarities. Technological advances allow moving from mass markets to segments of one. I agree to Michael Overzat’s Theory, alot has changed in the digital world all people seem to do is generate leads and forget about the product sales itself.

I have to give it to Michael Overzat, his appraisal on building an internet marketing strategy is spot on. I know quite a few contractors who either operate on word of mouth or they assist larger businesses as a side contractor to build their own business. However, very few of them invest in someone to follow up with the leads to ensure service is being delivered in a timely fashion and that all expectations have been met. Without these larger companies, they wouldn’t have a digital footprint at all.

You have some great examples that even with an online presence, brick and mortar businesses still need to follow up and ensure the job gets done. It does go hand in hand and you have to follow up more than once to ensure things pan out the way that they should.

Afterall, why pay for a lead when you are not going to bother seeing it through.

that’s what i am saying. they are using these lead sites and not even considering the alternatives of building a content development strategy that actually lasts. it’s like renting out a beach house for 1000 a month. or owning one year round that you can vacation at any time. id rather rank on google in the organics and come up any time theres a search, than paying homeadvisor 50 dollars a lead and they turn out to be duds. it’s so simple but many contractors aren’t willing to put in the time to develop this strategy.

Technically speaking it is easier to move from just mass markets to segments of one. I also agree with Michael Overzat’s Theory. There a lot of changes in d digital market a lot has changed in the digital world, people no longer focus on the sales of product, which could have been easier but they aim at leading.

I agree. Especially with the advent of machine learning for metadata, market segmentation is easier than ever. You can literally break it down and keep subdividing until you have a perfect target customer, depending on age, demographics, geographic location, whatever metadata you choose.

Digital marketing is one of the most important parts of getting your business in front of people. You need to get those leads and remarket to them over and over again. You need to constantly polish your sales presentation always making it better. To be successful day in day out is not easy but the rewards are well worth the effort.

You made a great point about remarketing. That is really where all the magic happens. it’s the rule of 7. it takes at least 7 times the customer needs to see the product or service before they consider to buy. having a digital marketing strategy that retargets from your website to google ad network to facebook to instagram. until they recognize your brand.

Hi! Oh this is so true! And you have described it beautifully! You have opened my eyes to marketing in many different ways. Separating us from the crowd not just having average activity. But really working to build our brand having massive activity.

I also now understand the huge mistake of investing on offline marketing and neglecting online marketing. The example of Overzat being searched on Google by business owners after receiving his calls is a very powerful example of the importance of digital marketing. Thank you very much for this post!

Thank you so much for this comment. Im so glad you see the connection between digital and traditional. how they carry over seamlessly. And that’s why it’s doubly important to have a personal brand seo campaign so that you can have control over what your customer sees when they look you up!

I read this article and immediately saved it to my favorites. Here I am, this 27-year-old new-young adult, whatever you want to call me, looking to make it in a) the digital marketing world, and b) the indie-author arena. I have and have always had an entrepreneurial mindset. I also want to get back into personal training a profession I took a break from because I, well, went amateur in it after a strong stint as a professional in another area.

That rung with and jumped out at me; the professional versus amateur section. It’s the truth and it’s a harsh truth for some. i did treat training like a profession once upon a time, and something happened to where it became pastime status. I’m not sure what, but it occurred.

And being new to the entire indie-author and digital marketing game, it’s a mistake I’d like to not repeat while I’m stilll young and grinding in my 20s. This is why I saved your article, because it’s one that I’ll return to when I need that boost of inspiration, to treat my ambitions as a profession, never again as a pastime, and to do all I can to:

1: Expand my brand, or brands at this point.

2: Generate a neverending list of leads, which for one of my brands is in progress at the moment.

Thank you again for this article, it really helped me see things from a new perspective.

It’s amazing when two-like minds connect. You are going to be very successful. I have no doubt. You have a fighters’ mentality. And that’s what you need in this kill or be killed world, right now. This is the time to seize the day. This is your moment. The world is yours as long as you stop resisting what you can truly become. Why does the thief steal? The thief steals because he is afraid of his true potential!

Check this link out for a problem affecting layout. ‘I believe the futur’ is vertical on the right side of the image when I went to precision digital media com/ category/ creating-a-culture/. Had to enter it this way since we are not permitted to put domains or website links. When I selected READ MORE it was corrected,

It is obvious you spent at least 2-3 hours building this site to the current level [More likely several months] The layout ans design is GREAT, friendly, and very easy to navigate.

Regarding topics – nice array of very well designed, use of enticing images, and written topics were captivating.

The only ‘problem’ I had was that the post/articles were so enticing that I was reading every word. NetFlixs Bandersnatch, Google Reviews, ect.

The best compliments on this site are:

1) I would highly recommend it,

2) It gave me great ideas to improve my site,

3) I bookmarked it to finish reading ALL your post and have the link to share.

Leo was the name of my sales mentor in my life.. You could be my new pen pal. Thanks for the continuity in your post. You not only analyzed the technical aspects but you also looked at the underlying themes and motifs. That is a sign of deep business integrity (that you don’t take any task lightly). But also highly creative ability.

The theory that Michael Overzat espouses is an interesting one and I tend to agree. From the 10,000 foot perspective, most marketers are not tapping into all the avenues there are today to market their services or products. I totally agree that a massive effort is required that addresses all aspects to one degree or another.

I believe that most marketers work at it until they experience some degree of success, and at that point, stop. They may wander outside their comfort zone here and there, but they become less open to new opportunities, to learning what others are doing, to what is working today.

That is dangerous and is leaving money on the table, however. The ways to market are increasing, and the old ways may still work, but many are not as effective as they once were. Not keeping up with the latest can cause you to be left behind, as in losing your business in a slow drip of clients that go elsewhere.

On the other hand, looking at what used to work and from the old days what is still working (there are methods that still work from decades ago to today) and combining the two will allow you to stay on the cutting edge and be the go-to person for the marketing needs of businesses (or for your own business).

Mr. Overzat’s theory in digital marketing may seem to be a bit aggressive at first blush, but it really does make a lot of sense! I can see how his tone and delivery gets the point across. Take massive action, do not be one of those that is a middle-of-the-roader doing just enough. Good post, an enjoyable read, lots of lessons!

It’s the dream of every companies to grow exponentially. But what happens if they don’t know about digital marketing? They go and pay for lead which is visited once or twice. Here, Overzat had stated out the the theory of digital marketing, how to go about the market and be known and make profit. This is the site to move your company forward in the world of digital marketing, good job here.

Couldn’t of said it better. If you want to rank, if you want perpetual leads, if you want to be the best you can be to the tenth degree, than bookmark this article and study and learn it. There is multiple layers to digital and traditional marketing overlap. there is an abundance of false information out there. but this article will actually tell the truth. if you want to make some serious $$ online and through traditional sales methods, then study this article like your life depends on it!

It’s sad when people who have offline businesses don’t think too much about their online strategy. Bill Gates himself said if you’re not online, you have no business.

To let someone else run the lead generation and marketing and brand exposure sounds like they are letting 3rd parties define their target customer. No wonder these businesses get unqualified customers. You’d think they would know their target customer and would run their own online marketing efforts to attract that ideal customer.

I don’t think anybody else has made that point. When a third party is giving them leads—they are defining those leads. GREAT point! But they don’t really know their target customer, and that’s the reality. that’s why they put it in the hands of the genie in the bottle. 🙂

In my opinion, we can’t live without the digital world anymore. What most people don’t realize however, is how fast the internet changes, and you need to be constantly working on it, to be sure you are always on the top.

If you don’t, you will be outgunned by the competition sooner or later.

Anyway, good post and it should make people think about the potential.

Hi This is a great representation and quality post about Michael Overzat’s Theory. I have same opinion and agree with Michael theory that many people really forgot about product’s quality for it’s sales boosting and spent more time to generate leads. I am going to bookmark and study on this more later. I believe it will be helpful for all beginners who want to learn and earn from on line. Thanks for sharing this great content.

I have got to admit that digital media is still baffling to me at times. I understand how it works, think I have a handle on it then something else pops up and I realise that I am only simply scratching the surface. It makes no sense for big companies not to embrace digital marketing in a professional way by having an in house team taking care of it on a daily basis. How can you have an outsourced company doing it when they dont understand your business in detail. For the small business owner, they may get away with it but Im not so sure the 21st century even really accepts that. The article is very informative and whilst this isn’t a topic that I honestly know a ton about, but the argument flowed and was very on topic.

Being new to all things digital marketing, I’ve always wanted to learn more and grow myself. I’m happy to have seen this article as it’s helpful to my growth as a digital marketer. I’ve learnt a lot from this article on Michael Overzats Theory on digital marketing and how to go about mine.

I think post-purchase is one segment that many businesses fail. Even in the company that I work with, there’s a lack in following up with ‘post-purchase’. Management has the tendency to ‘blame’ customers for not doing their follow-ups, but I think the responsibility falls heavily on the company to initiate that move first. Otherwise, how would a customer follow through.

Most of the time, it feels like the company just want to close the deal, take the money and leave it as that. I don’t really like the way it work, but I have little say in management. If we can focus more on post-purchase behaviors, I believe we can make more customers happy and get more referrals.

This site is really informative about the digital marketing. I learned about a lot of strategies in this site today. Push and Pull method seem to be interesting and also reasonable for me. I think I’m going to take one step at a time and try following the Push and Pull method first.

Thanks for sharing, this article really makes me think and understand more of why success is coming with different speed.

In conclusion, I think I’ll have to kick my ass and do massive action. I am not a young guy anymore and my energy level is not optimal but I think by motivating and learning not to do the wrong action I should be able to do more than the average 🙂

Thanks a lot for the Great inspiring post! This has to be motivating, not only for me but also for many others.

Being a full-time blogger working from home your post means a lot to me and I got great insights from your post.

As we know the famous quote “If your business is not on the internet, then your business will be out of business.” – Bill Gates.

Indeed, follow up is very important even in email marketing after the visitor giving their email address many times we fail to contact them. Instead of relying on others if we generate our own leads and rank for our posts it will be great. Previously I was writing content for others and later I started my own blog and I am writing for me at the moment which made the big difference.

This is a powerful message. I have never looked at marketing this way. I have known about marketing but I don’t think I have ever gotten a basic explanation such as this. A lot of online entrepreneurs market the wrong way and many of them end up losing a lot of money.

Spending $50 on a lead that at the end of the day you end up not making the sale and then you almost immediately spend another $50. That’s just wrong marketing. I have gotten a lot of info and a general but powerful insight into digital marketing. I would be referring to this more often.

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